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Monthly Wrap Up: July 2024

Hello, hello, happy Wednesday and happy end of July! You know the drill by now; it’s the end of the month so it’s time to share my wrap up and let you know how the month of July went for me.

Get comfy and cozy and let’s chat all things July!

It’s been a pretty good reading month! My July reads started with Summerween, and I completed all the prompts and read 6 books during the week-long readathon! My reading took a little bit of a dive after that; work was super busy, and for the last few weeks there have been quite a few (metaphorical) fires to put out at work which took up so much of my time. I did a lot of rereads, which is nice, I always love revisiting an old favorite.

I ended up reading 17 books which I’m very proud of, and the majority of them (not including the rereads) were ranked fairly highly.

Books read this month:

  1. Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis (2 stars)
  2. Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose (4 stars)
  3. We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer (4.5 stars)
  4. The Children on the Hill by Jennifer McMahon (3 stars)
  5. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (4 stars)
  6. My Throat an Open Grave by Tori Bovalino (4.5 stars)
  7. Wednesday Books Title — not sharing title or rating as I am participating in the SMP Boycott
  8. Asking for a Friend by Kara H.L. Chen (4 stars, arc)
  9. Beach Read by Emily Henry (5 stars, reread)
  10. Book Lovers by Emily Henry (5 stars, reread)
  11. Happy Place by Emily Henry (5 stars, reread)
  12. Wednesday Books Title — not sharing title or rating as I am participating in the SMP Boycott
  13. Bonnie & Clyde (Musical Script) by Ivan Menchell (5 stars, reread)
  14. Such Charming Liars by Karen M. McManus (3 stars, arc)
  15. She Left by Stacie Grey (1 star)
  16. Let the Games Begin by Rufaro Faith Mazarura (3.5 stars)
  17. Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson (4 stars, arc)

Blog posts and vlogs I loved this month:

  • I love a cute romance that’s set around food/restaurants and I’ve heard such good things about A Banh Mi for Two by Trinity Nguyen. This book sounds right up my alley and Robin’s review made me even more excited to read it!
  • You all know that I am a proud library lover and I loved reading Erin’s post on their library obsession

My posts this month:

This month I went to a book signing for Ann Liang, which was so much fun! Y’all know that I’m a huge fan of Ann’s and I was so excited to see that she would be coming to a local bookstore, so obviously, I had to go. I loved getting to listen to Ann talk about her writing process, the development of her books, inspiration, fun anecdotes and to hear a bit about her upcoming projects. I got all three of my books signed and got to chat with Ann for a bit + give her the friendship bracelets that I made for her. It was a great night!

The highlight of the month for me was absolutely the Niall Horan concert on the 26th. You can read my review where I just gush about the show and how much fun I had, but it really was the best night. I’ve never had that much fun at a concert and I already can’t wait until the next time I get to see him live!

Another really nice thing that happened this month was that my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece came and visited us for a few hours over the weekend. I haven’t seen my niece and nephew in a while, so it was really lovely to spend some time with them!

The end of the month has been all about the Olympics. I’ve been watching as many events as possible (even when I should be sleeping…) so, that’s really all I’ve been watching aside from Giants baseball. At work, I turn on the Olympics to have some background noise. I get home, I turn on the Olympics, I go to bed, I’m watching the Olympics. As I said to my mom the other day, we are on Olympics lockdown. 

Aside from the Olympics, we’re also on Niall Horan lockdown. Since it was Niall concert month, I did a lot of listening to Niall — you’re all sitting here going, “Caitlyn, that’s not new” and it’s not, but Niall is pretty much all I’ve wanted to listen to this month, especially after the concert. My Niall playlist has been on HEAVY rotation and at the moment, seems to be one of the only things putting me to sleep.

This year I started making monthly playlists with my top 10 songs of the month — it’s fun to look back and see what songs I was really vibing with each month and which songs stay in rotation all year. Here’s the link to my July monthly playlist — I’m sure none of this will shock you.

How was July for you? What did you read and what did you think of them? What were the highlights of the month for you? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time! 💜